For obvious safety reasons, pilots need timely, accurate weather data to make informed decisions both in preflight planning and while in flight. For flight planning purposes, the pilot needs to know at least the current weather conditions at the departure location and the forecast conditions for the intended route of flight, as well as forecasts for the planned destination and any required alternates. Once enroute, the pilot must maintain a real-time awareness of the actual, as well as forecast conditions for the remaining route of flight and the intended destination and alternates.
The present National Airspace System (NAS) weather support system can provide extensive weather data for preflight planning but, due to the wide variance in the quality and quantity of support available throughout the network, the system is inefficient and frequently ineffective. Also, this system demands too much human effort and pilot-ATC (air traffic controller) interaction. While the present system can provide extensive weather data, especially for preflight planning, that data is frequently received only verbally or in alpha-numeric form since many pilots today must depend on remote weather briefing support. Under these circumstances, the presently available system provides verbal telephone briefing for the pilot to acquire and assimilate the weather information needed to make preflight decisions. If a personal computer is available, then the pilot may also have alpha-numeric printouts of current and forecast weather conditions and in some cases, standardized plots may be obtained. These plots are generally of limited usefulness due to their age or sparseness of information.
When in-person weather briefing support is provided, weather maps and charts of current and forecast weather conditions are available along with (in some cases) weather satellite pictures and weather radar displays. These graphic and pictorial displays assist the pilot in visualizing and understanding or assimilating the current and forecast weather patterns. Once enroute, the pilot must currently "pull" almost all weather data from the system by various request-reply methods, thus relying on the pilot's intuition to pull the right data at the right time. Then the pilot must mentally assimilate the data received while still flying the aircraft. To further compound this labor intensive process, both tasks (flying the aircraft and assimilating the weather data) become more demanding as the weather conditions become more complex and potentially hazardous.
Thus, the present NAS weather support system is inefficient and frequently ineffective because it demands so much human effort and interaction. It has been shown that, in a four hour general aviation flight over a 500 mile route with thunderstorms forecast at about the halfway point, the NAS weather support system would produce almost 2000 individual weather observations and forecasts which could be used in assimilating a detailed weather picture for preflight planning and in-flight monitoring. It is obviously impractical for the pilot to currently get and assimilate this amount of data directly. Therefore, the normal practice is for the pilot to concentrate on the weather at the destination and the alternates during preflight and, while in-flight, to get enroute weather ad hoc from on-board observations or from the air traffic controllers (ATC) in the form of sketchy radar observations or Pilot Reports (PIREPs). The pilot may also leave the ATC frequency and request similar data from Enroute Flight Advisory Service (EFAS) or the Flight Service Station (FSS) by voice. The destination and alternate weather conditions can be obtained using these same channels, or when close enough, from the local Automatic Terminal Information System (ATIS).
The timeliness, quality and quantity of weather observations and forecasts in the present NAS weather support system are not always adequate to meet the needs of aviation flight operations. While large quantities of data may currently be available, the geographic and time spacing of the data may still not be sufficient to adequately depict the existing weather conditions. Further, the current weather forecast products are frequently too generalized and are not always accurate. As the weather changes and unforecast conditions occur, timely forecast amendments are not always generated and provided to the pilots in an effective, efficient and fail-safe mode. The critical impact of adverse weather on flight operations, coupled with the current limitations in the present NAS weather support system, make it imperative that the pilot monitor all available weather information affecting his flight.
Planned improvements in the NWS and FAA aviation weather systems will provide more observations and more detailed forecasts which will vastly increase the amount of data available for presentation to the pilot. There is thus a definite need in the art for an automated weather data delivery system that will systematically supply near real-time weather data to those using the airways.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an automatic system for the pilot of an aircraft to acquire, assimilate and display weather data for preflight and in-flight decision support.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an automatic weather data system that improves flight safety, aircraft utility and efficiency in pilot-ATC interactions.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a systematic broadcast of digital routine surface and aloft weather data updates and forecasts in discrete time windows over a data link via a communications satellite to an aircraft having a processor and display system on-board to process and display the broadcast weather data to the aircraft pilot.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an on-board processor on an aircraft that is programmable by the aircraft pilot to automatically select the map area for display of weather data broadcast from a ground weather station and relayed by a communications satellite.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide an on-board processor and display device on an aircraft that receives and displays digital broadcast weather data from a ground station in map-style depictions and as alpha-numeric formats tailored to the operational needs of the pilot.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide overlay capability to a weather display device on an aircraft for comparison of near real-time interrelated mosaicked ground weather radar maps, lightning, and the like, on the surface weather depictions being received by the weather display device.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a system that supplies pilot in-flight information that gives a systematically updated assessment of the actual and expected weather, at the appropriate resolution in time and space along his route and at his destination and alternate, in a form that is easy to acquire and use.